The Sacred Art Museum of Funchal, which opened on 1 June 1955, celebrates its 70th anniversary this year. Seventy years of safeguarding heritage and protecting that which belongs to everyone, seventy years of a beauty that is all ours. Housed in the former Episcopal Palace, dating from the 18th century, the Sacred Art Museum of Funchal acts as custodian of the greatest treas- ures of our identity: our culture, the faith that has guided our history, the beauty that allows us to open up ‘windows to infinity’ (in the words ofTeodoro de Faria, one of the emeritus bishops of the Diocese).
At the initiative of Bishop António Manuel Pereira Ribeiro, and others who followed him, the Museum started to gather, conserve and exhibit the best diocesan sacred art, bringing together painting, sculpture, gold and silver work, and vestments, remarkable sacred and artistic assets from churches and former convents on the island of Madeira. In recent decades, between the late 20th and early 21st century, the Museum has en- hanced its collections thanks to deposits from the Cathedral, Colégio Church, and other churches and chapels in the Diocese, or with works made in those churches that needed to be moved or withdrawn from worship, as well as cases where there was a desire to safeguard certain pieces, thus creating a space where beauty can be presented as a path to spirituality.
Best known for its magnificent collection of Flemish painting and sculpture from the late 15th to the mid 16th century, the Sacred Art Museum of Funchal also boasts a superb collection of Portuguese painting produced by renowned mas- ters between the 16th and 18th centuries, as well as a notable collection of Portuguese vestments and gold and silver work, including some pieces of Flemish origin or inspiration. The Museum has another experience to offer the visitor: a journey through eastern orthodox sacred art, to a world of beauty, mystery and contemplation.
The Sacred Art Museum of Funchal is thus a place of dialogues, a cultural pole of reference in the regional panorama, with its own programme offering moments of debate and contemplation, words and silences, beauty and spirituality. Indeed, this Museum can be seen and understood as the convergence of a series of paths – historical, social, cultural and artistic – at an intersection of societies and institutions that, through time, have bequeathed us a significant wealth of humanity and beauty.
In this treasure surrounded by sea, it is possible to revisit the history of Madeira, but also to redis- cover the Atlantic dimension of Portuguese culture and of European civilisation itself.
Graça Alves Executive Director
